If only the Government had listened to Henry Worsley

Dust swirled up from Lashkar Gar airfield in the sunshine towards the blue skies; convoys were forming, line after line of bulldozers, oil tankers, 4×4 cars bristling with guns and men in wraparound sunglasses. The American private security company, DynCorps, had come to town to start Afghanistan’s opium war.

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Worsley watched the build up with a mixture of anxiety and distaste. “We will need to liaise with them, just to make sure we do not go anywhere near those areas. Our position is quite clear, we are not going to get involved in eradication,” he said.

This was in March 2006, Britain was about to deploy a task force of 5,700 to Helmand. A deployment which was to last no more than two years, one that Defence Secretary John Reid had hoped would end “with not a shot being fired in anger”.